Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who will be in Portland next week for a big fundraiser, has been taking a lot of hits lately on the campaign trail.

In the last few days, the national press has been all atwitter about Romney supposedly going back and forth on whether President Barack Obama made the economy worse (which Romney would certainly rather have as a point of discussion rather than how his Massachusetts health care plan resembles Obamacare).

On top of that, the candidate who is surging in the polls right now is Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has even pulled into a statistical tie with Romney in Oregon, which has not exactly been a state on Bachmann's radar screen.

For Romney, a two-way contest with Bachmann is a strategic dream come
true. (Disclaimer: I worked for Romney in 2002.) It would draw attention
and money away from his two real rivals, [Jon] Huntsman and [Tim] Pawlenty, and
give him a simple race against a candidate who would remove much of the
ambivalence many big-league Republicans still harbor about him. Make no
mistake: faced with the terrifying prospect of nominating Bachmann and
handing the presidency to Obama, the Republican establishment would
rally hard and fast behind Romney. And while a unified Republican
establishment in full combat mode cannot compete with the Tea Party when
it comes to making cardboard Uncle Sam hats, GOP Inc. can easily crush a
candidate like Bachmann over the full series of primaries.

As it happens, Romney will have much of the local franchise of GOP Inc. on hand when he appears in Portland on July 11 at a fundraiser (minimum ticket price: $1,000) at the West Hills home of construction magnate John Bradley. The host committee includes former U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, House Republican Leader Kevin Cameron and Columbia Sportswear owner Tim Boyle.